Small distant galaxies host supermassive black holes

Sep 15, 2011

This is a montage of four small, young galaxies taken from a Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 slitless grism sample of 28 low-mass galaxies located 10 billion light-years away in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field region of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS). (Credit: NASA; ESA; A. Koekemoer, STScI; J. Trump and S. Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz; and the CANDELS Team)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using the Hubble Space Telescope to probe the distant universe, astronomers have found supermassive black holes growing in surprisingly small galaxies. The findings suggest that central black holes formed at an early stage in galaxy evolution.

"It's kind of a chicken or egg problem: Which came first, the supermassive black hole or the massive galaxy? This study shows that even low-mass galaxies have supermassive black holes," said Jonathan Trump, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Trump is first author of the study, which has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and is currently available online.

All massive galaxies host a central supermassive black hole, which may shine brightly as an active galactic nucleus if the black hole is pulling in nearby gas clouds. In the local universe, however, active black holes are rarely seen in small "dwarf" galaxies. The galaxies studied by Trump and his coauthors are about 10 billion light-years away, giving astronomers a view of galaxies as they appeared when the universe was less than a quarter of its current age.

"When we look 10 billion years ago, we're looking at the teenage years of the universe. So these are very small, young galaxies," Trump said.

The study, part of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS), used a powerful new instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The "slitless grism" on Hubble's WFC3 infrared camera provided detailed information about different wavelengths of light coming from the galaxies. Spectroscopy allows researchers to spread out the light from an object into its component colors or wavelengths. With Hubble's high spatial resolution, the researchers were able to get separate spectra from the center and the outer part of each galaxy. This enabled them to identify the tell-tale emissions from a central black hole.

"This is the first study that is capable of probing for the existence of small, low-luminosity black holes back in time," said coauthor Sandra Faber, University Professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz and CANDELS principal investigator. "Up to now, observations of distant galaxies have consistently reinforced the local findings--distant black holes actively accreting in big galaxies only. We now have a big puzzle: What happened to these dwarf galaxies?"

One possibility is that at least some of them are the progenitors of present-day massive galaxies like the Milky Way. "Some may remain small, and some may grow into something like the Milky Way," Trump said.

But according to Faber, both possibilities raise further questions. To become big galaxies today, the dwarf galaxies would have to grow at a rate much faster than standard models predict, she said. If they remain small, then nearby dwarf galaxies should also have central black holes. "There might be a large population of small black holes in dwarf galaxies that no one has noticed before," Faber said.

Trump noted that the distant dwarf galaxies are actively forming new stars. "Their star formation rate is about ten times that of the Milky Way," he said. "There may be a connection between that and the active galactic nuclei. When gas is available to form new stars, it's also available to feed the black hole."

In addition to the Hubble observations, the researchers obtained further evidence of active black holes in the galaxies from x-ray data acquired by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The study focused on 28 galaxies in a small patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Because each object was so small and faint, Trump combined the data from all 28 galaxies to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

"This is a powerful technique that we can use for similar studies in the future on larger samples of objects," Trump said.

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But the theory of neutron repulsion is easily refuted in the following ways:

1) If neutron's repelled each other, this would add an add an additional force making neutron heavy isotopes more unstable than they are. This isn't supported by any evidence.

2) Neutron stars would not be able to form, because the repulsive force would disrupt them during formation. If it was very small, then the stars would form, but it would have to be tiny to be undetectable as an increase in the stars size vs measured mass.

This observation implies, at the distance of 10 GLyrs the galaxies were younger in general, which apparently supports Big Bang model. The dense aether theory supports rather steady state Universe model instead, in which the galaxies are condensing and evaporating across the whole Universe like giant fluctuations of dense gas. In accordance with it we can observe well developed galaxies composed of stars of high metalicity even at the most distant areas of Universe.

If it's so, why we can still see the young galaxies in remote areas of Universe preferably? The first reason is observational. Because these galaxies are most luminous ones, they appear like brightly shining quasars - so they can be observed most easily in distant areas of Universe. The second reason could be statistical/anthropocentric. Our Milky Way is pretty old one (or we couldn't evolve in it) - so that our neighborhood appears similarly.

It should be pointed out, the steady state universe model is not dogma for dense aether model, because there is no reason, why our Universe should appear completely flat and uniform. I do prefer the random Universe model, because such model requires the least amount of assumptions in accordance to Occam's razor criterion. So I presume, the Universe appears like clouds or Perlin noise at the most general scale, because this is how the random geometry appears.

Some astronomers like Mrs. Laura Mersini are believing, the Universe appears like giant quantum wave which travels from place to place and it ignites the nucleosynthesis at the places, where it appears - which should be perceived like the local Big Bang.

IMO the most probable scenario is the mixture of steady state and localized Big Bang model - because there is no reason for some particular model (note the Occam's razor again). Our Universe appears homogeneous, but not quite (Doppler shift of CMBR).

But the theory of neutron repulsion is easily refuted in the following ways:

1) If neutron's repelled each other, this would add an add an additional force making neutron heavy isotopes more unstable than they are.

2) Neutron stars would not be able to form, because the repulsive force would disrupt them during formation.

3) VERY massive neutron stars would collapse into black holes.

Thanks for excellent points!

1. Neutron repulsion is observed as an increase in mass (stored energy) in every nucleus with two or more neutrons.

2. Gravity, the competing force, produces a gravitational barrier that must be penetrated for neutron emission or fission to occur. Like the Coulomb barrier that must be penetrated for alpha emission of fission of heavy nuclei.

The conceptual problem with Big Bang model is following: it considers, our Universe expands with increasing speed with distance and at the distance, when the speed of expansion reaches the speed of light, we can experience a particle event horizon of our Universe. The standard LCDM cosmological model describes such geometry with FLRW metric, which appears like the black hole inside out.

The standard cosmology puts the origin of Universe right there, because from wavelenght of CMBR follows, the Universe expands just 13.7 Gyrs. But there is no actual reason for it - our Universe could expand a well before the light escaped from its particle horizon. In accordance with it it seems, the Universe is much bigger, than it would correspond the product of speed of light and universe age.

Neutron repulsion is observed as an increase in mass (stored energy) in every nucleus with two or more neutrons.

The isotope mass of tritium is 3.0160492 Daltons, the mass of deuterium is 2.014102 Da, the difference is 1.0019472 Da. But the mass of free neutron is 1.008664 Da, i.e. it's 6.7168 mDa heavier, than that difference. If the neutron repulsion would store some significant energy in atom nuclei mass, shouldn't be tritium heavier, than the sum of neutron and deuterium mass? Instead of it, the tritium is lighter, because of larger diameter (lower surface curvature) of its atom nuclei, than the deuterium.

If I should take your deductions seriously, I should consider, the neutron repulsion is actually decreasing the energy, released during fusion of two deuterons into helium nuclei (because it's stored in form of rest mass of helium nuclei). If the energy stored in compression of neutrons would be significant in comparison to fusion energy, then the fusion of deuterium into helium would actually become endothermic! We can deduce with simple logic, that even if the neutron repulsion would store some mass inside of atom nuclei, then its contribution must be quite negligible with compare to the fusion energy, or it would compensate the positive heat of this fusion.

And I'm not discussing the ways, in which the energy of neutrons should release later. It would require the emanation of protons, instead of consuming them with fusion reaction. In this way, the stars would produce lighter elements during their burning, instead of their fusion into heavier ones...

This observation is consistent with LaViolette's model where satellite galaxies are often spawned from ejected material from galaxies (M31 satellites for example), and grow from within via new matter ejected from a process occurring deep within the core of the supermassive mother star contained therein. Now these smaller galaxies have these massive mother stars too. I know it violates all that is sacred, but it still fits. Let us pray.....

where satellite galaxies are often spawned from ejected material from galaxies

It contradicts the observations, these satellite galaxies are usually composed of very old stars of high metalicity, so they're generally considered a remnants of much larger galaxies swallowed with host galaxy. I'm rather inclined to this explanation, as it opens place for possible existence of remnants, which are older, than the observable Universe - which would indeed support the steady state Universe model and burrow the Big Bang a cyclical models of it.

This has nothing to do with my argument used with data from Wikipedia (the isotope mass of tritium is 3.0160492 Daltons, the mass of deuterium is 2.014102 Da, the difference is 1.0019472 Da. But the mass of free neutron is 1.008664 Da, i.e. it's 6.7168 mDa heavier, than that difference - not lighter as your theory implies) You should learn to argument interactively rather than repeat your irrelevant links like spam bot machine for being considered seriously.

This observation is consistent with LaViolette's model where satellite galaxies are often spawned from ejected material from galaxies... Now these smaller galaxies have these massive mother stars too.

Which smaller galaxies? The observation of small galaxies (with no satellites and/or massive stars) discussed in the article has nothing to do with satellite galaxies and massive mother stars from simple reason - we couldn't recognize them at the 10 GYrs distance. You're mixing two different concepts together on background of random coincidence of words, which they're using. This doesn't mean, LaViolette ideas are wrong - they're just irrelevant to subject discussed.

The fact, goats are drinking watter and the watter is present at the distant planets doesn't imply, these goats are living just there... Check your line of reasoning and you would see, where your problem is.

Is there a maximum energy density allowed in any arbitrary unit of space? If so, wouldn't the universe have had many locations that would have rained matter despite the high temperatures? Inflation is happening while matter is precipitating into existence. Huge numbers of super mass black holes form from all the matter. Once the universe has expanded enough and density has decreased, no more matter forms until the universe cools. The super massive black holes would have formed almost as soon as the universe exploded into existence then after inflation expands the universe enough, all the black holes can do is float around in space. Once the matter condenses, the black holes are already there, sucking in more matter, getting much larger much faster and spinning massive amounts of hydrogen gas into orbit around them. This eventually turns into stars.

The core mother stars often precede the formation of the smaller galaxy, as in this case. Galaxies often grow from the inside out, as has been shown recently in several ways. The question becomes, where did the core mother star originate from in the first place?

The core mother stars often precede the formation of the smaller galaxy, as in this case. Galaxies often grow from the inside out, as has been shown recently in several ways. The question becomes, where did the core mother star originate from in the first place?

The hierarchical cosmology models are based on gradual condensation of most sparse forms of matter into more dense objects consider, the cold dark matter condensed into dust, later into stars and galaxies and just after then into central black holes.

Before some time I proposed the model, in which central black holes were formed first and just after then the galaxies were evaporated from them - which is in good agreement with observation of young galaxies inside of remote areas of Universe, which have surprisingly large black holes inside of them.

I deduced this model from discovery of large galaxies that formed about 800M years from the beginning of the universe. This discovery implies that in less than a billions years from time=0, there were already a large galaxies, which couldn't be formed with gravity in LCDM model.

It just means, the Big Bang theory based on limited age of the Universe is wrong - or our theory of black holes (in which black holes cannot radiate is wrong - IMO you will not make any mistake, if you will assume the both..). The finding discussed in this article actually supports rather the alternative cosmologies, like the ekpyrotic cosmology and or shock wave cosmology, as proposed by J. Smoller and B. Temple [PNAS, 2002].

BTW In this connection it's interesting, that most of planets in solar system are supposed to have rocky & iron core of the roughly same size. It seems, they collected their hydrogen and lighter elements in secondary process, i.e. in similar way, like these small satellite galaxies, which makes the later model scale invariant (i.e. repeating even at smaller scales). We can consider primordial black holes as a remnants of previous universe generation from this POV..

From general perspective of dense aether theory the deterministic models of Universe formation (like the Big Bang theory) will suffer with increasing problems, whenever the scope of observation will converge to the boundary of observable Universe. It doesn't mean, these models are fundamentally wrong - they're just valid for certain part of Universe. With increasing distance from observer the influence of fragmented or even reversed time arrows of quantum mechanics will broke the models based on general relativity (like the L-CDM model).

You can imagine it easily with water surface analogy again. Up to certain distance from observer the appearance of water surface could be described quite exactly with model of water surface ripples, in which the surface ripples doesn't interfere with the underwater. But at very large distance all surface ripples will get dispersed into underwater with no mercy, so that the perspective mediated with surface ripples will get broken too.

Another memo for you - young scientists and science wannabes - could be, you shouldn't afraid of qualitative modeling while doing such a general predictions about Universe at the distance/energy density scales, which are very far or close to human observer scale. Because under a high-dimensional situations the low dimensional formal models based on deterministic description of Universe are becoming poorly conditioned (ie too sensitive on their parameters).

In addition, the formal approach based on reductionism leads into fragmentation of our reality understanding and into increasing of number of formal theories. Which makes no problem for theorists, which will just get more jobs in such way - but the laymans will get into problem when trying to orient in increasing number of formal theories (which are exact by itself, but of limited validity scope).

Under such a situation the qualitative nonformal approach will help you to navigate through huge landscape of theories more easily.

I can give you an analogy of history: from local perspective of Third Reich contemporaries it seems, the rise of Nazism was spontaneous movement in which people aggregated around individual proponents of Nazism from outside.

But from more distant historical perspective we could recognize, whole the Europe has been already a melting pet of Communism and Nazism, from which these extremists ideas expanded into outside. The low energy state of civilization after WWW I has lead into its spontaneous symmetry breaking and polarization of social movements.

At the case of historically distant events we can recognize their outer (global) sociopolitical context more easily - so we can even recognize them as a undeniable consequence of the external conditions, from which there was already no way to escape. I.e. like the sort of predestination or black hole, which would indeed disappear from the local perspective with respect to free will of individuals.

There is interesting aspect of black holes, which is known as a black hole complementarity. It just means, many processes appear in quite opposite way, when they're observed from inside of black hole instead of outside of it.

From inside you may not realize, you're in black hole already if you insist on the deterministic description of reality. For example, die-hard relativists will be convinced, that light still travels in constant speed through space-time around black hole, albeit it's already revolving it AT PLACE.

One of the consequences of this paradox is, the black holes appear the smaller, the more close you approach to them. Occasionally you could appear inside of them without even realizing, you already crossed their event horizon. In this way the distant galaxies would appear burrowed beneath the black holes, which are siting inside of them.

The memo is, the more distant objects are you observing inside of their dispersive environment, the more the extrinsic perspective is included in such a view. From this reason the objects near boundary of the observable Universe appear in much more time symmetric way, than the objects inside of it. From sufficient distance we would appear like the creatures living at the surface of fuzzball, i.e. at the fuzzy event horizon surrounding the black hole at the center of our Milky Way. Whereas from our local perspective this black hole occupies just an insignificant portion of Milky Way volume.

It applies both to cosmological scale, both the quantum scale - just in reversed way. For example, the clusters of heaviest particles like the top quarks appear like being formed with Higgs bosons nearly completely, because with increasing distance from human observer scale the boundary between density fluctuations forming the matter and density fluctuations forming the space vanishes mutually.